NC State head coach Will Wade met with the media shortly after it was announced that the Wolfpack would open the 2026 NCAA Tournament in Dayton against Texas. Check out what all he had to say!
Yeah, Will, I know you guys probably track this stuff as well as anybody, but just all in all, are you surprised by Dayton, happy with the selection, just kind of your initial thoughts?
I mean, I'm shocked by going to Dayton, but, I mean, look, we did it to ourselves. I told our guys there's no victims in the room. We have a quad four loss to Georgia Tech. We didn't handle business down the stretch. So, look, we're fortunate to be in. We're happy to be in.
I did think, our metrics and, you know, some of our stuff was a little bit better, but, look, we're not complaining about being in. We're in the thing. We got a chance, and now it's on us to play better and to play well, but, look, we have a quad four loss.
We lost, nine of 11 down the stretch. If we didn't want to be in Dayton, we should have beaten Notre Dame or Stanford, and so that's just the way it works, and so we're not complaining about any of that, and we've got a great opportunity in front of us with a really good Texas team who we saw in Maui.
Yeah, Will, obviously it was a while ago, but you've had experience playing in Dayton in this situation. Is there anything you can draw from that time at VCU on staff and that you can try to use on this quick turnaround?
I mean, look, it's a quick turnaround. We'll leave tomorrow, but, look, I mentioned it to the team tonight. Last time we were in Dayton, good things happened, and so it's all about preparing for Texas and trying to put our best foot forward and, get the first win, and you can get a little win behind your sails and get a little bit of momentum.
Yeah, speaking of seeing Texas before, the selection committee typically does not do rematches like that, so were you surprised by that, and maybe what can you learn from game one against them to take into this week?
Yeah, I was surprised. I think they try to avoid rematches in the first round, so I'm not sure what all went down there, but, I mean, look, they really shot it well from three against us. I think they were 16 of 32. They shot 50 percent from three against us.
They scored over 100 on us, so it was a just, you know, it was an up-and-down game, and it was the third game in three days for both of us, and so really, really challenging game, and we're going to break down some film tonight and get ready for Tuesday night.
Will, looking at the last two games you guys played, obviously you mentioned the fact that the UVA game was one of the more complete efforts that you guys had of the season. Just your thoughts on, what you learned from the last two games that you can carry over going into Dayton?
I mean, thank goodness we beat Pittsburgh. We'd have been in real trouble if we hadn't beaten Pittsburgh, so thank goodness we beat those guys, but, I mean, look, I thought we played, a little bit more of an edge, a little bit harder. We've got to clean up the details and the discipline to go with that, and that's going to be the challenge to do that quickly before Tuesday.
And really quickly, as far as the turnaround is concerned, I mean, you mentioned it a little bit, but how difficult is that turnaround when you're – if you do win to try to get, over to Portland, Oregon at that point?
We'll figure all that out. We've got people that handle all the logistics, so we'll figure all that part of it out. We're focused on getting to Dayton and trying to win the first game, and then we'll figure out what happens from there.
Now, Will, your experience obviously helps going to having been Dayton before. The short turnaround on such a dime, I mean, do you feel like physically that takes a toll on the team, or is their youth going to help them in that regard?
Yeah, I think that stuff's overrated. I mean, look, we finished the ACC tournament on Thursday. We were off Friday, Saturday. We practiced today. We practiced hard. I'm glad I practiced them today.
We were going to do some shooting, but I thought there was about a 30% chance we may end up in Dayton, so I decided to go ahead and practice them today. But, we'll be ready to go. We'll practice tomorrow morning and get out of here when they tell us to leave, and we'll be ready to roll from there.
And follow up if you don't mind, sir, just the general, was there an enthusiasm when the team was announced? Was there, kind of despair because it was Dayton? How did they react to the assignment?
There wasn't a word said.
Will, what can you draw from your McNeese run last year where people didn't necessarily expect and people probably aren't expecting necessarily a lot from this year's team in the tournament?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's two totally separate situations, but I think preparing your team for tournament play is the same no matter where you are. I thought we were prepared for ACC tournament play, which gives us some pop and gives us some hope as we try to prepare for NCAA tournament play on Tuesday night.
How much does it help that you don't have to explain to the players who Jordan Pope is or Chendall Weaver is because they've seen them, they know what they're capable of? Does that help at all when you have a quick turnaround?
Yeah, or Wilcher who hit three threes on us or Heidi who hit three threes on us. So, I mean, look, that'll help. We'll certainly, it's a team that we lost to earlier in the year. And so certainly our guys, we'll have their full attention. But, I mean, we should. It's an NCAA tournament game. Anybody should have every, we should have everybody's full attention for an NCAA tournament game.
Yeah, Will, I just want to follow up on something you said after the Virginia game about your defense. There's a 7%, difference in effective field goal percentage for teams. It gets better in the second half when the defense is away from your bench. Is that a communication thing that leads to teams getting better with kind of the defensive communication breakdown? Or what do you think allows, teams to shoot better in the second half when the defense is on the other end of the court?
Yeah, it's a communication issue. It's a first half, we can help them because the defense is in front of our bench. In the second half, we're more reliant on the guys, and we just haven't been as tight and as good as we need to be in those situations.
Will, I just wanted to get your thoughts on what metrics maybe have been used in order to get you guys, as a first four, as opposed to a team like Mizzou that was much further behind you guys in the net. Do you feel like there was something that kind of contributed to this that led you guys to not be there?
I don't know. We'd have to ask the committee. And, look, we'll worry about all that stuff in the offseason to make sure that we're doing what we need to do from a scheduling standpoint, make sure we're doing what we need to do to put our team in the best position.
But, I don't know about that. We can't worry about that. And the reality is, if we don't have a quad four loss and if we play better and win the games that we're supposed to win, I mean, for crying out loud, we lost to two teams that didn't make the ACC tournament.
So, we have our – there's no victim here. There's no woe is us, woe is NC State. We got screwed. There's none of that. We did it to ourselves. And if we wanted a better outcome, we should have had better results. And it's a results-based business, and we didn't have better results. There were some games we decided we didn't want to play as hard. There's some games that we had guys that maybe weren't as interested in some games as other games. And it's a good life lesson.
Everything you do matters. And everything you do is measured.And at the end of the day, everything adds up, and you are what it adds up to. And, this is where we are. And we're not complaining. We're happy to be in. I mean, shoot, San Diego State beat Utah State yesterday.
And Ole Miss continues their run in the tournament.We're having a totally different discussion potentially. So, look, we are who we are. We got what we deserve. We got what we earned. And now it's our turn. Now it's our time to see if we can do something with this opportunity more than we've done during the regular season.
Coach, going off of that, the guys seemed like they were in a pretty good head space following the loss to Virginia in the sense of, okay, we know what we need to do. We know we can compete with the best of the best. How was the weekend of being able to prep and practice? You mentioned that you're excited to play, but what's your take on the temperature in the room?
Yeah, I mean, we had a good practice today. And so we gave our guys a little bit of rest. And we've had a good practice today. We need to have a good practice tomorrow to give ourselves a chance on Tuesday against Texas. So, we'll see. But I think we certainly there's some things we can build off of from the ACC tournament.
You have a group of players that are in their fourth or fifth year of college who have had big-time success in the NCAA tournament. How does that pay off at this time of the year?
We'll see. I hope it does. I mean, that was part of the idea of putting the roster together and putting the team together was to get some tournament experience and make sure that we were experienced in these situations. And so we have that. We're going to lean on those guys. We need those guys to step up and come through for us.
